Holiday Calendar

National Erik Day

Next celebratedThursday, November 5, 2026

Erik has held a day in the Swedish almanac since the Middle Ages, and November 5 is not that one. It is the American date for a spelling that has quietly been losing ground to Erick.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATENovember 5
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A calendar entry without a paper trail.

No proclamation, statute or founding announcement for National Erik Day has been located, and the Federal Register carries no document that mentions it. The day circulates through online holiday listings and print-on-demand merchandise fixed to November 5.

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INTRO

Erik's older day falls in May

The name Erik has held a day in the Swedish almanac since the Middle Ages, and that day is 18 May. National Erik Day is not it. This one lands on November 5, and no record of who put it there has been found.

The name itself is counted closely. Social Security card applications record 157,461 American boys registered as Erik. Those files cover 146 years of births.

What has happened to the spelling since is the surprise. Erick has been registered for more American boys than Erik in every year since 2005. The two had traded places before 1933, but only in years when both names sat in single or low double digits, close to the five-occurrence cutoff the agency prints.

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ORIGINS

Erik Day history

CHAPTER 01

Ever ruler

Behind the Name traces Erik to the Old Norse Eiríkr and glosses it "ever ruler". The two pieces are ei, meaning ever or always, and ríkr, meaning ruler or king. Both element entries rest on one authority, the Icelandic-English Dictionary of 1874, which also lets ríkr mean mighty or rich.

CHAPTER 02

A king, a date, and a calendar that would not move

Erik Jedvardsson ruled Sweden from about 1156. A papal bull to his son Knut confirms only that he was killed by unspecified enemies. The chronicle tradition supplies the scene: pulled from his horse at Östra Aros near Uppsala, then beheaded.

Swedish sources hedge that scene as enligt legenden, according to legend. What is not legend is what the calendar did with him. The date of his death became his feast, and it stayed there.

The Swedish Academy still keeps it as one of a small set of single-name days, alongside Lucia and Knut, because the church and folk attachment was judged too old to share.

CHAPTER 03

How the name reached the American files

Behind the Name says Eric was not popular in medieval England, and that it was revived in the 1800s, in part due to a school novel. Frederic William Farrar published Eric, or Little by Little in 1858. The revival went to the c.

One Erik arrived by ship in 1878 and lost the spelling on landing. The Weisz family left Budapest for the United States, the surname became Weiss, and the boy called Erik became Ehrich. He grew up to be Harry Houdini, under a name his family had already changed.

Erik's own arrival in the American files came later, and smaller. Social Security lists five boys in 1911, and then the name is absent for two years. National Erik Day arrived later still, on November 5, with no founder and no proclamation on record.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Erik Day Matters

Spelling

Erik, Eric and Erick are three separate names in the files, not three ways of writing one.

Social Security never merges spellings. Erik, Eric and Erick are three separate entries in every year file, so a chart drawn from one of them leaves the other two out entirely. Anyone using these files to talk about a family, a class register or a generation has to say which spelling they mean before the number means anything.

Universe

What the count is actually counting

The figures come from Social Security card applications for United States births, tabulated as of 1 March 2026. They are not a census of living people and deaths are not removed, so a total spans everyone who ever applied. Any name with fewer than five occurrences in a year is left out to protect privacy, which is why a rare spelling can vanish from a file and reappear.

Rank

Why a rank needs a rulebook

Social Security sorts each year by count, breaks ties alphabetically, and then numbers the records 1, 2, 3 and so on. Two names tied on the same count therefore get consecutive positions rather than a shared one. Other publishers use the competition method and print a different position for the same name in the same year, so a rank is only meaningful with its rulebook attached.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Erik the Red sails west

Around the year 982 Erik was exiled from Iceland for three years and spent them exploring Greenland. Saga sources credit him with founding the island's first successful European settlement once the exile was over.

A Swedish king is killed

Erik Jedvardsson died on 18 May. A papal bull to his son Knut confirms he was killed by unspecified enemies, and the date of his death became his feast.

A school novel revives Eric

Frederic William Farrar published Eric, or Little by Little. Behind the Name credits the book, in part, with the nineteenth-century English revival of the name.

Erik becomes Ehrich in America

The Weisz family left Budapest for the United States. The surname became Weiss and the boy called Erik became Ehrich, later known as Harry Houdini.

Erik enters the American files

Social Security lists five boys named Erik, the smallest count the agency will print. The name then drops out of the file for 1912 and 1913.

Sweden fixes the modern name list

Swedish almanacs adopted a new list of 616 names. Erik kept its medieval date as one of the days judged too anchored in church and folk tradition to share.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Erik Day

Erik has never had a year over Eric

In 146 years of Social Security files, Erik has not once been registered for more American boys than Eric. The two closest years are 2022 and 2024, and they are effectively tied: a single extra Erik in 2022 would reverse the order between them.

The gap is closing because Eric is shrinking

The Erik to Eric ratio has risen at every decade step from the 1950s to the 2020s, 0.046 up to 0.422, though that last figure covers 2020 through 2025 rather than a full decade. That is not Erik growing. Measured across the same years, 1980 to 2025, Erik is down 88.8 percent and Eric is down 94.4 percent.

Erik's best year never cracked the top fifty

1980 was Erik's peak on all three measures at once: 4,918 boys, 0.2757 percent of that year's male births, and rank 64. Rank 1 is the year's most registered name, so 63 male names still finished ahead of it. Erik has never entered the top 50.

Erica and Erika collide with a word for heather

Behind the Name gives both the same Old Norse roots as Erik. It then adds that Erica "also coincides with the Latin word for heather", and that Erika "also coincides with the word for heather in some languages". Coincides, not descends: neither entry derives the name from the plant.

Six spellings, one and a half million registrations

Across the same files, Eric holds 893,184, Erica 232,637, Erik 158,126, Erika 126,212, Erick 79,880 and Erich 11,706, for 1,501,745 in all. That total covers those six spellings only. Ericka, Aric, Erykah, Eryk and Eirik are counted separately again.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Erik Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Check which spelling is on the certificate

Any figure quoted for Erik is counting one spelling and only one. Read the paperwork before repeating a number, because the Eric and Erick totals are not inside it, and the agency never merges them.

READ

Read the novel behind the revival

Frederic William Farrar's Eric, or Little by Little appeared in 1858, and Behind the Name credits it, in part, with pulling the c spelling back into English use. It is long out of copyright and easy to find.

WATCH

Watch the year the order flipped

Put the 2004 and 2005 files side by side. Erik has 2,365 against Erick's 2,232 in the first, then 2,228 against 2,245 in the second. It has trailed every year since.

LOOK

Look past the six best-known spellings

Behind the Name lists English forms well outside the usual six, among them Ericka, Aric, Erykah, Eryk and Eirik. Each is its own entry in the American files, with its own count and its own shape on the chart.

GIVE

Give the day its second date

Sweden runs Erik in May and this one runs in November, and nothing links the two calendars. Put both in, and an Erik gets a card twice a year plus a reason to go and read about a twelfth-century king.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Erik Day?

1 / 5

Behind the Name glosses Eric as "ever ruler". Which two Old Norse elements does it come from?

Answer

No. The Federal Register, which publishes presidential proclamations and other federal documents, returns nothing for National Erik Day. It is not established as a federally proclaimed observance.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

8sources
2primary records
1independently dated
Primary records
US Social Security Administration2026-03-01
Beyond the Top 1000 Names: national data on the relative frequency of given names
The year-by-year national name files, 1880 to 2025, tabulated as of 1 March 2026. The bundled NationalReadMe.pdf states the universe (US births to Social Security number holders), the ranking rule (sorted by count, ties alphabetical, records numbered 1, 2, 3) and the five-occurrence privacy floor. Source of every count, share and rank on this page.
View source
Svenska Akademien
Namnlängden
The Academy's own account of the name list Swedish almanacs have carried since 2001, drawn up by representatives of the academies, name research, language cultivation, folklife research, church tradition and the almanac publishers. It runs to 616 names and lists Erik at 18.5, that is 18 May, among the days kept as single-name days.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Eric
Derives Eric from Old Norse Eiríkr, from the elements ei and ríkr, and records the nineteenth-century English revival credited in part to Farrar's 1858 novel. The linked entries for Erik, Erick, Erich, Erika and Erica give the same root pair.
View source
Behind the Name
Name Element RÍKR
Old Norse ríkr, 'ruler, king' or 'mighty, rich', sourced to Cleasby and Vigfusson's Icelandic-English Dictionary of 1874. The companion entry for ei gives 'ever, always' from the same dictionary.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Erica
Gives Erica as a feminine form of Eric, first used in the eighteenth century, and notes that it also coincides with the Latin word for heather. The Erika entry carries the same coincidence note.
View source
Wikipedia
Saint Erik
Erik Jedvardsson, king of Sweden from about 1156, died 18 May 1160. Records the papal bull to his son Knut confirming he was killed by unspecified enemies, his 18 May feast, and the Roman Martyrology and Lutheran commemorations on that date.
View source
Wikipedia
Harry Houdini
Gives the birth name Erik Weisz, Budapest, 24 March 1874, and states that on the family's arrival in the United States in 1878 the surname became Weiss and Erik became Ehrich.
View source
Wikipedia
Erik the Red
Describes Erik as exiled from Iceland around 982 for three years and, in saga sources, as founding the first European settlement in Greenland. Notes that crediting him with discovering Greenland is a common popular error.
View source
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